[Tickit-dev] Released: Tickit 0.39

[Paul LeoNerd Evans]

I really should remember to write these things more often ;)

Here's a summary of the bigger changes since 0.30, the last time I
wrote one of these:

 * Widget subclassing with Style (0.31)

   Better defined behaviours when widgets with style are subclassed.
   (Though upcoming version 0.40 will further expand on this).

 * Automatic reshape and redraw with Style changes (0.32, 0.35)

   Style keys can now automatically cause reshape or redraw to happen
   when they are changed.

 * Mouse drag and drop events (0.32)

   Some support for handling drag and drop events between windows. A
   window starting a drag operation will keep receiving events for it
   even if the cursor moves outside of that window.

 * Mouse and key event structures (0.32)

   To support more flexible arguments in mouse and keyboard events,
   they are now passed as structures, as well as positional parameters.
   This works via an overload, allowing the first parameter to be the
   event object or stringify to the event type name as it used to.
   Eventually this may be removed, so widgets should be updated to use
   the new event structure methods directly.

 * Tickit::RenderBuffer (0.33) and rendering via it (0.35)

   A whole new way of rendering widgets, where an in-memory buffer is
   filled with the required content, then it is flushed to the terminal
   in an efficient manner. As well as simplifying many types of
   rendering method code, this allows such abilities as using Unicode
   line-drawing characters, placing corners and junctions correctly.

   Currently the widgets on CPAN are in somewhat of a transition, but
   eventually when every class is using the new ->render_to_rb model,
   the old version will be removed, along with most of the drawing
   methods on Windows. Instead, RenderBuffers will be constructed right
   from the root window upwards, and flushed directly to the terminal.
   (At this point, RenderBuffer will move from its current XS
   implementation to being native to libtickit itself).

 * Timer API (0.34)

   The main Tickit object now supports a simple API for registering
   timer callbacks to run things at some future time. This is
   integrated with the event-loop subclasses (Tickit::Async and
   POEx::Tickit) as well. So far not much is using it, asides from the
   recent Tickit::Widget::Spinner, to display a spinning
   progress animation.

 * Automatic focus-chain management (0.35)

   Container widgets now automatically handle the "focus chain", the
   ordering of which widgets to move to next in the focusing order. The
   <Tab> and <Shift-Tab> keys are now handled at the main Widget level,
   automatically cycling between focusable widgets. There are still
   some rough edges around such cornercases as the Tabbed container
   widget, but it mostly works.

 * Keybindings from Style (0.35)

   Widgets can now handle keypress events as actions by simply creating
   methods named after the actions they wish to perform, and supplying
   style information to bind these keys. Because it works via the Style
   system applications or users can easily override the bindings to
   provide their own.

 * Experiment to defer Window child list changes (0.37)

   Work on Tickit::Widget::Menu demonstrated that having new child
   windows appear or old ones disappear in the window order immediately
   during event processing can cause bugs where windows receive events
   multiple times, or skip them entirely. 0.37 adds a non-default
   experiment to defer all these changes until the next 'later' phase,
   ensuring that new or deleted windows don't upset the round of event
   processing that caused them.

   Eventually this option will be enabled by default, so any widget
   classes or applications doing nontrivial things with child windows
   during event handlers can test their behaviour in preparation for
   this by using an environment variable:

     $ TICKIT_CHILD_WINDOWS_LATER=1 perl ...

Since 0.37 it's mostly been minor bugfixes and API changes, nothing too
groundbreaking.

-- 
Paul "LeoNerd" Evans

leonerd at leonerd.org.uk
ICQ# 4135350       |  Registered Linux# 179460
http://www.leonerd.org.uk/
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